All the winners, pictures and judges' comments from the British Journalism Awards 2013

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What the judges said: “Patrick is a journalist who has been reporting from Egypt since January 2013 at no little risk to himself. He’s been beaten up and arrested as he exposed the toll unrest in that country has taken on unarmed civilians.

“He wrote the dissection of a massacre in a model way – it’s a great piece of reconstruction that leads to revelation.”

Patrick pictured with Javier Millan from Air France-KLM

Finalists:

Alex Ralph from The Times,

Fiona O’Cleirigh from Exaro News

Maeve McClenaghan – from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Sarah Morrison from The Independent

Simon Murphy from the Mail on Sunday

Business, finance and economics journalist of the year – sponsored by Astellas

Winner: Tom Bergin from Reuters

The judges said: “Most of the other journalists writing about the tax affairs of companies like Google and Starbucks are following in his footsteps. He practically wrote the questions for the Commons select committee.”

The judges praised her for “some good old-fashioned shoe leather reporting” which saw her investigate conditions at an Amazon warehouse in Rugely.

Finalists:

Laura Kuenssberg from ITV News

Stephen Grey from Reuters

John Gapper from the Financial Times

David Enrich from the Wall Street Journal Europe

Campaign of the Year

Winner: The Sunday Times for Safe Weekend Care – the campaign for a seven-day NHS

The judges said: “This campaign was well presented, planned and coordinated from beginning to end. It was backed up by great reporting and research and has succeeded in getting a national scandal addressed at the highest level.”

Finalists:

Andrew Norfolk from The Times for his ongoing work exposing the scandal of child sexual exploitation and grooming

The Sun’s Fight For April campaign calling for action to curb internet pornography

London Evening Standard for Ladder for London…encouraging London employers to take on more apprentices

Selina Maycock of the Scunthorpe Telegraph for a successful campaign to pay for the wedding of a terminally ill reader

The Sunday Times for Westminster for Sale – its series exposing how lobbyists pay for access to Parliament and the Government

Foreign Affairs Journalist of the Year

Winner: Hala Jaber of The Sunday times

The judges said: “Hala Jaber has been there year after year, living in Damascus and covering the conflict from both sides and getting really strong stories.

“Her story about the Assad regime general was one of the few pieces of journalism that tried to get us into the mind of the government side of the conflict – and did so critically.”

Sunday Times editorial director Eleanor Mills accepting the Foreign Journalist of the Year prize on behalf of Hala Jaber from BJA judge Kevin Marsh:

Finalists:

Anthony Loyd of The Times

Katrina Manson from The Financial Times

Kim Sengupta of The Independent

Patrick Cockburn of The Independent

Richard Lloyd Parry – The Times

Photojournalist of the Year

Winner: Richard Pohle – The Times

The judges said that his photo of soldiers taking cover at Camp Bastion was the one stand-out shot of the competition this year – beautiful and atmospheric. They remarked that it was really tough photo to get with the equipment he would have had in that spot.

Finalists:

Jeremy Selwyn of the London Evening Standard

Mark Scott of The Sentinel

Oli Scarff from Getty Images

Suzanne Plunkett from Reuters

Politics Journalists of the Year

Winner: Joe Murphy of the London Evening Standard

The judges praised Murphy for fine writing and three genuine exclusives. The revelation that David Cameron was supporting gay marriage had huge repercussions and his exclusive account of the private Thatcher family funeral service was a fine piece of colour writing.

Joe Murphy with BJA judge professor Peter Cole:

Finalists:

Amelia Gentleman of The Guardian

Janan Ganesh of the Financial Times

Neil Elkes of the Birmingham Post and Mail

Steve Richards of The Independent

Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake of The Sunday Times Insight Team

Innovation of the Year

Winner: The Guardian for GuardianWitness

“One of judges said they had downloaded the app and they were using it every day. They felt it brought citizen journalism and user-generated content to a new level by – improving engagement, sourcing great content and doing so in a way that made money for the paper through sponsorship.”

The GuardianWitness team pictured with BJA judge Ian Reeves (right):

Highly commended:

The Sun for Sun+

The Independent for Voices In Danger

Finalists:

Lewis Whyld for his 360-degree interactive camera

The ooh aar Augmented reality platform as used in The Sentinel

The Brixton Bugle and Brixton Blog

Sports journalist of the year sponsored by the Hippodrome Casino

Winner: David Conn – of The Guardian

“All his stories were about some form of corruption in sport. He delves beyond the glitzy veneer of modern football to hold the game’s gilded elite to account.”

David Conn pictured (right) with awards sponsor Simon Thomas of the Hippodrome Casino:

Finalists:

Christian Sylt – freelance for City AM and The Independent

Ian Herbert – of The Independent

Luke Edwards of the Telegraph

Mark Ogden of The Telegraph

Sam Wallace of The Independent

Science and Technology Journalist of the Year sponsored by the Wellcome Trust

Winner: Robin McKie of The Observer

The judges said: “He goes for the biggest subjects and makes technical issues compelling with his approachable style of writing. His piece on a GM rice strain which could save millions from blindess was a particularly fine piece of science writing on a hugely important global issue.”

This was reporting which forced the Met Police to re-open its investigation into an alleged conspiracy to undermine chief Whip Andrew Mitchell. One police officer is to face trial and five are facing charges for gross misconduct.

The judges said they thought it was a great year for Dispatches and were also hugely impressed with its joint Guardian investigation into police spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence and its investigation into failings at the NHS 111 non-emergency call service.

They praised Dispatches for rigorous public interest journalism of the highest order.

Journalists from the Channel 4 Plebgate team with BJA judge Liz Gerard:

Finalists:

Exaro News – for the Murdoch tape

Tom Harper of The Independent – for Blue chip hacking

Catherine Deveney of The Observer for – top cardinal accused of inappropriate acts by priests

The Sunday Times insight team for – generals for hire

Anthony Lloyd of The Times for his exclusive report on the aftermath of a chemical weapons attack in Syria

Investigation of the year

Winner: Michael Gillard of The Sunday Times for his exposure of gangster David Hunt (the Untouchable)

The judges all agreed that Michael Gillard should win for an 11-year investigation which exposed career criminal and violent gangster David Hunt. The last journalist to investigate Mr Hunt received a head-butt for his troubles. Gillard stayed the course, memorably running rings around Hunt’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC in the High Court.

The judges felt that Gillard edged this prize because of the skill, determination and bravery it took to see this story through.

The Sunday Times succeeded where the collected forces of law enforcement in this country had failed – defeating Hunt in a court of law and obtaining a measure of justice for his victims by public exposing him for the first time.

Highly commended:

The Guardian – For the Snowden Files

Andrew Norfolk of The Times for his work on the child sex grooming scandal

The judges were hugely impressed by the global ramifications of The Guardian’s Snowden files revelations and by Andrew Norfolk’s ongoing dogged investigation into sex grooming. Both are highly commended.

Finalists:

Mark Daily and Murdoch Rodgers of BBC Scotland for Sins of our Fathers

Channel 4 News and Dispatches for Plebgate

Jeanette Oldham of the Birmingham Mail for her investigation into a cancer surgeon with unacceptably high death rates

The Marie Colvin award – sponsored by Syria Relief for the journalist who the judges felt had done the most to raise the reputation of our craft and inspire other journalists.

Former Times foreign editor Richard Beeston (who died of cancer in May of this year aged 50).

Dr Ayman Jundi presenting the Marie Colvin Award to Ben MacIntyre of the The Times and Natasha Beeston:

One of the great foreign editors of The Times – Richard Beeston was a hugely liked and respected figure throughout Fleet Street.

An indefatigable foreign correspondent he covered conflicts in Lebanon, Iraq and Chechnya for The Times.

He exposed Saddam Hussein’s gassing of Kurdish civilians at Hallabja in 1988, reported on atrocities by Serb forces in the Bosnian War of the early 1990s and after 2011 he shone a light on the barberous campaign of general Assad in Syria against his own population.

When one of the judges suggested Richard’s name for the Marie Colvin prize there was immediate and enthusiastic agreement from all the others.

The BJA judges cover a broad cross-section of our diverse industry but they had all been deeply touched by Richard’s contribution to journalism.

As Oliver Kamm wrote in The Times: “Richard Beeston saw his responsibility as finding things out and giving as objective an account as he could manage of the horrors of the conflicts he covered. Objectivity doesn’t mean balance: it means telling the truth about what you discover.”

Journalist of the year, sponsored by Santander

Michael Gillard – Freelance/The Sunday Times

Michael Gillard could not attent the awards and cannot attend public events in London for security reasons. The awarded was accepted on his behalf by his friend the journalist Laurie Flynn and presented by Santander director of communications Jennifer Scardino: